


The Lourdes Thing

by Ilthit



Category: Father Ted
Genre: Clergymen, Comedy, F/M, Gambling, Gen, Origins, Prequel, Priests, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How that money ended up resting on Ted's account.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lourdes Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tootsiemuppet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tootsiemuppet/gifts).



"Wonderful sermon last Sunday, Father," said Mrs Maitland over the fence that separated her little townhouse garden from Ted's. Her lips parted in a smile, and Ted made an effort not to notice how luscious andperfectly shaped they were.

"Thank you, Mrs Maitland, very kind," said Ted and accidentally over-watered his gardenias. Trying not to look at Mrs Maitland's lips only meant focusing on the rest of her, none of which was any less alluring even in a simple blouse and tight-fitting jeans – oh, so tight-fitting. His eyes slid instead over her shoulder and fixed on the sight of her husband's porch slippers resting by the door.

"Especially the part about temptation. How did you put it again? 'It rakes us, it burns us, that nagging discontent of coveting that which belongs not to us but to our neighbours.' It gave me the shivers, Father." She did shiver then, a theatrical tremor that made all her soft parts jiggle.

"Ah, Father Cedric," said Ted, turning hurriedly to the first person he saw coming down the street. "How's the raffle going?"

"Very well, thank you," said Father Cedric Truffle. He was a large, bearded man who looked as if he would be more at home presiding over a Druidic rite than mass. When Father Cedric had been appointed to the closest nearby church to Ted's, Ted had been quick to assure him that there should be no competition between them, especially since he was quite sure that if there was, Father Cedric would win. He had that kind of an expansive personality. The raffle was a shared project between them, meaning that Father Cedric decided the price, impressed the donors, hosted the raffle and was to get credit with the diocese, and Ted would sell some tickets. Whatever was left over after the prices had been given out and the charitable cause paid for was to go to fixing Father Cedric's parochial house's roof. "It's leaking like old Jamie on Saturday night," was how Cedric had put it, followed by an explosive guffaw.

"Listen, Ted, could I speak to you for a moment?"

"Of course."

"I'll just nip in for a quick scrub in the bath then, Fathers," said Mrs Maitland and bounced her way indoors.

Ted showed Father Cedric into the living room and put the kettle on. The cosy nook seemed much too small for Cedric, but then again, so did any open street. He'd need to stand in an open field just to look like he had enough elbow room.

"The thing is, Ted," said Cedric, who somehow managed not to crush the teacup in his hands, "the raffle sale has been going so well that it's getting a little embarrassing to save it all on my personal bank account. As you know I made a fair bit earlier this year from selling the old apartment in Dublin. The tax man has been sniffing around ever since in case I have any extra income. It's all on the level since it's not even my own money, but I'm looking at long hours with the revenue officer explaining how church raffles work."

"And the parish account is still tied up in red tape since the Noodle incident?" asked Ted. "Fair enough. How can I help?"

"If you wouldn't mind putting it under your name for the time being? It might help with any future loans, in any case, if the bank takes a look at your account and sees a man who can pop a cool £3,000 in and out again like it's nothing." He laughed boisterously, though if that was a joke, Ted thought it a feeble one.

"£3,000?" cried Ted. "How did the raffle collect that much already?"

"Oh, it's only £1,500, at the moment," said Cedric, "but that's just counting my half of the sales. Yours will bring it up to the round number."

"Well, Cedric, I'm not sure I have made exactly that much in sales yet."

"Oh, aye? Well, that's just another good reason to pool it now, so there's no confusion about the full amount. We might start comparing results otherwise and, like you always say, Ted, there shouldn't be any kind of competition between us, even if our congregations have some overlap, ha ha!"

"Ha ha," said Ted, whose congregation had dwindled by two thirds since Cedric had replaced the rambling old Father McCarter as vicar of the neighbouring church.

"Well, then, that's settled. I have a hospital visit to do this afternoon, but how about lunch tomorrow at my house? You can pick up the cash and meet Julia." Julia Newark was their charity cause - a poor orphaned 17-year-old whose only wish was to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes's sites of Marian apparitions after she herself had had a vision of the Holy Mother in a pool of spilled milk. With £1,500 she could've gallivanted off all the way to China and back.

Ted agreed and Cedric departed. The house seemed to sigh in relief and settle more comfortably on its foundations.

£1,500! Where was Ted supposed to get £1,500 before the price event next week? He'd sold tickets to all 20 of his regulars except Mrs Mutabe, who he'd never seen part with so much as a penny. He'd managed to push some more on the lads at the pub and had donated six to his brother, sister-in-law and four nieces. Then there'd been the 56 sold at the retirement home. He'd thought old people would be easy pickings, but it had taken him three days to have tea with every single one of them, and four of them hadn't even paid full price. For 50p a ticket, that had got him to... £43 and 50p.

And Ted thought he'd done so well! 87 tickets in a week was good going, especially when the prize was an ugly black leather sofa that the winner would have to pick up himself. It was just that Cedric and his hordes of worshippers and his damn winning personality. It was only luck of the draw that Ted had ended up with the smaller of the two churches. If he'd been in the running instead of already installed when old McCarter keeled over... Well, he'd still have lost to Father Cedric, he had to admit, however much it stung. Cedric would always be the vicar of the best church in any diocese until the time he was ordained a bishop or gave it all up.

To make £1,500 Cedric had to have sold tickets to three thousand people. No, there was definitely a rat here somewhere, and Ted resolved to take it by its sneaky little tail.

Ted struck off early the following morning, taking the long route on his bicycle to stop on have a chat with Mrs Mutabe over her hydrangeas. She was as loose with her gossip as she was tight with her money.

"I hear she's not really an orphan at all," said Mrs Mutabe. "There's something very off there. Carol at the post office said she saw her post a card addressed to 'dear M and P'. Mama and papa, hmm? You can see she's trying to be clever."

"Shocking," said Ted, who didn't care. "Father Truffle has done well with the ticket sales, hasn't he?"

"Has he?" asked Mrs Mutabe. "I was talking to Nadia the other day and she said he's been very modest about it. Nothing but a little reminder every now and then that the deacon still had some raffle tickets to sell. The deacon, now, there is a strange fellow. Did you hear he buried his cockatoo in the churchyard?"

"Oh, look at the time, good morning, I will see you on Sunday," said Ted and cycled off before Mrs Mutabe could get warmed on the subject.

Father Cedric lived in a townhouse much like Ted's own, only it was twice as large and had a back garden with a towering oak and quaint stone wall at the back. Ted had a small patch in the front with a single slender birch, a suburban and bare garden that he'd always thought a little beneath him. It was hard not to think of sacrifices, black robes and eerie chanting going on in Cedric's garden on full moons, but so far Cedric seemed to have restricted himself to Sundays.

Ted parked his bicycle outside and locked it, because youngsters just had no respect for the clergy these days. He thought about sneaking around the back way and possibly catching Cedric shaking hands with a mafia boss, but couldn't see any way to sneak in without looking like he was sneaking in, and so just rang the bell.

The door was opened by the housekeeper, Nadia Robinson. Of course Cedric had a housekeeper. Ted just had Mrs Norton come in a couple of days a week. The robust young woman showed Ted into the oak-panelled living room and poured him a glass of water. "Himself will be in the garden with the young lady," she grunted and started for the French window.

"Ah, never mind all that," said Ted, who saw his opportunity. "I'll announce myself." He slid the window open as quietly as he could. Nadia shrugged and disappeared back into the mysterious world of housekeepers.

"– add all that part-time work on the CV?" said a feminine voice.

"Only if it looks good." Once again Ted did not see the joke, and yet Father Cedric's laughter boomed in the garden. "And if it does, don't mention it was part-time."

"Won't they see I was still studying for GSCEs at the time?"

"Sweetpea, they never look that closely."

"I want to make sure it looks good. Ooh, I'm so excited, Uncle Ced! Imagine working so closely with the CEO if such a fine vineyard I'm even 18!"

"You're lucky he took such a shine on you."

Ted retreated a few steps back inside the house and opened the French window again with a lot more clatter. What dirty tricks! This was no pilgrimage – it was a job interview! And that poor orphan was Cedric's own niece! Oh, the rottenness of man and the hypocrisy of priests – other priests. Not Ted.

"Hello there, Father Cedric!" said Ted. "And this must be Julia!"

Julia Newark was a serious-looking girl with Scandinavian features and messy hair. Her baggy grey dress resembled a nun's habit cut short at the knees. She immediately dropped her eyes at the sight of Ted and mumbled her hello. Oh, she played the part well, the little hussy.

"Forgive her, she's a little shy," said Cedric, and turned Ted back towards the house. "Let's get this business over with and then we can all have a cuppa, hmm?"

"Thank you, actually I think I ought to be on my way," said Ted. "Banks close early on Thursdays."

"Do they?" Cedric frowned.

"Don't they? Anyway, lovely meeting Julia, there. How did you say you two met again?"

"Oh, here we are," said Cedric, unlocking a drawer in the massive wooden writing table in the living room. He pulled out a thick envelope and a cloth bag that chinked in a distinctive way. "Hope you're wearing your money belt, ha ha!"

"Ha ha," said Ted, slightly dizzied by the presence of so much ready cash.

"You never did mention how much you'd taken in," said Cedric. "How did it go in Black Rock?"

That seemed to Ted to be a rather sudden change of subject, but it did give him a chance to pick which subject to comment on. "Oh, I didn't enter a bet this year." He hadn't even realized Cedric knew he'd been placing bets at the Blackrock Village Raft Races through his Aunt Janie.

"Eh?"

"Anyway, must be off," said Ted, who wanted to think. The money went into a bag (not a purse) and the purse -- bag! -- was slung over his shoulder and clutched so tight it would have taken a lever to get it off him. Ted did not kid about money.

He discovered it was quite easy to guide a bicycle with one hand, especially if you didn't mind startling a few septuagenarians. He only relaxed when the full sum – £1,487 and 50 pence – had been safely booked in his account.

Ted walked his bicycle to the nearby park and sat down for a well-earned fag. Filthy habit, of course, but even a priest needed at least one vice, and Ted's nerves needed calming.

The event was on Friday evening next week. Father Cedric would announce the sum collected before reading out the winning number. By then he would know just how much their figures differed. Ted didn't need to exercise a great deal of imagination to guess how the conversation would go. Cedric would make a comment that wasn't funny and then laugh at it anyway, and then never mention Ted's failure again. Cedric had a way of not mentioning things that drove Ted up the wall.

But what could he do? No-one could raise that kind of money in a week. Cedric had probably put his share in himself, out of the same fund that that ridiculous house and the housekeeper sprang from. Why should Ted be paying for Cedric's niece's working holiday, anyway?

And why was the man sitting next to him on the bench whistling? Bit rude to be whistling while Ted was sitting right there, being the second best priest of his neighbourhood. He might as well have been whistling at a funeral.

The man, a small, shabby-looking character in new shoes beamed a cross-toothed smile at him. "You'd be whistling too if you knew what I know, friend," said he, which confirmed him in Ted's mind as a drunkard. You had to have a habit of heavy drinking before you started calling people 'friend' while sober.

"Oh, aye?"

"You look glum, I'm going to tell you," he said. "I know you godly men don't gamble, but perhaps you'd like to hear of another's windfall – the story of a man who beat the system."

"You cheated?" asked Ted and took another drag.

"What? No! I have a system!"

"You have a system or you beat the system?"

The man looked confused, so Ted relented. "So you won a bit of money. Good for you."

"Oh, I haven't won it yet," said the little man. "But I will after the dog races this afternoon. I have an unbeatable tip."

"Do you?"

"I heard it straight from the horse's mouth. You see --" the man leaned in, "almost all of the dogs in the races tonight are owned by the same man. Wilkes the Hound, you know him." Ted did. The man was a local celebrity. "They don't know it yet, but my brother who's in the city council tells me they passed an ordinance saying dogs owned by the same person cannot compete against each other. Wilkes has all the best dogs, and Solid Gold leads all other owners' dogs by a mile." The man laughed. "So you see, the world is a beautiful place."

"Just let this be the last time," said Ted piously.

The man tapped his own nose. "Of course, Father. Oho, better get going," he added, tapping his watch, and tottered off.

Ted smoked another fag and watched the little man cross over into the booking office and come out again, still whistling. As soon as he disappeared into a nearby pub, Ted traced his footsteps and put in £50 for Solid Gold. The animal's dismal record so far meant Ted could quadruple his money, and if he spent all those winnings on raffle tickets for himself for that, he could get all the way up to £193.50 on sales. That left him... hardly any closer to saving face.

Ted was just settling in to an evening of take-away and a Larry Niven novel when there was a quiet knock on the door.

It had started raining in the afternoon. Mrs Maitland sniffled on Ted's doorstep, shivering in her shorts, with rain clinging to her bare arms. "Oh Father, I've ruined everything!" she cried and fell into his arms.

"There, there," said Ted, led to the living room sofa, gave her a blanket, and made the tea, somehow managing to do all of it with the book clutched firmly in front of his crotch.

Once Mrs Maitland had warmed up and had had her sobering cuppa, she launched into a confession. "We've been fighting, Father." Ted was vaguely aware of this, but it had been a difficult subject to address, so he hadn't. "Eric is just so possessive. He's always suspecting me of straying. And the terrible truth is I have! I haven't done anything wrong, but I have these... thoughts."

Ted had washed his face with cold water while making the tea and had made sure to sit so that his sternest image of the Lord was in plain sight as he faced Mrs Maitland. He was all right so far.

"Terrible thoughts... Oh, I can't tell you."

"Do you have anyone to stay with?"

"No, no-one. My sister isn't back from Dublin until tomorrow evening."

"Maybe we can get you into a nice hotel for the night?" said Ted. "You can have a good night's sleep and we can both talk to Eric tomorrow."

"But I have no money. I have nothing but the clothes I walked in with."

"Ah, well..."

"What if I stay here? Just for the night? I don't dare go back now." She scooted closer to Ted. "You know I've always liked priests? They just seem so comforting to me. So safe. With a man of God in the house, I feel like nothing could ever hurt me. And I don't want to be alone tonight..."

Ted swallowed. "Mrs Maitland."

"Please," she whispered. "It's Marianne."

"You... you said you'd been having thoughts... about another man?"

"Yes, Father. You see, Father Truffle and I--"

"Father Truffle? Father Cedric Truffle?" Ted croaked.

"Yes, you see, he--"

"Oh, sh-- shush, you-- poor woman," said Ted through gritted teeth, and went to call her a taxi.

The taxi and the hotel and the little extra Ted gave Mrs Maitland for breakfast and a change of clothes wiped out his future winnings, but he considered it worth it. Just to be on the safe side, he called in a late bet on tomorrow's dog race, too, pinning another £50 on Solid Gold. If he really was the best dog around that wasn't Wilkes's, tomorrow's race would be as sure a thing as today's. 

His evening prayer was a touch curtailed that night. Ted could have made a list of the many things he loved about the Lord, but this habit of testing His servants would not be on it.

The rain had picked up, so Ted employed a pair of earplugs to make sure he got a proper night's sleep. The rain pattered on the windowpanes, then pounded on it like tiny angry fists.

Ted slept through the power outage at 3am, and was undisturbed when the wind tore the whimsical elephant weather vane off his roof. At 5am he woke up with the sudden feeling that something was wrong just seconds before the birch tree crashed through the window of his bedroom.

By breakfast time the storm was national news. Wexford's council took the opportunity to show prompt action and mobilised a small army of workers to clean up the debris. Ted smoked and watched two men in hi viz coats take a chainsaw to the birch. The sound pierced the cheery bright midday weather. It was making Ted's head ache.

He'd lost the bedroom window and a chunk of wall and roof. His garden was now dominated by an uprooted tree, soon to become an uprooted tree trunk. Ted didn't know how much it would all cost to repair, but he did know that the diocese had already granted him pipe renovation earlier that year and that he hadn't got around to renewing his insurance since it ran out last week, meaning that whatever it cost, it would have to come out of Ted's pocket and, considering the size of Ted's pocket at the time, he would be at least a few hundred on the minus. That was even without considering what he had wanted to give to the raffle.

He did what any priest would do. He put out his fag and went to the church to have a good pray.

Ted's church, though not a sizeable one, was old, and bore the glory and sweat of decades of dedicated work as well as a selection of less-than-masterpiece quality art. Rows of sculpted saints looked down upon Ted as he crossed his hands on the second pew.

"I'm not going to ask why," he told God after the preliminaries were over. The crucifix looked back at him kindly and impassively. "I'm sure you have your reasons. I could use a little help, though. Show me the way, Lord. A sign – anything – any way I can get out of this one. Please. I don't want get in debt." Or be humiliated in front of Father Cedric. He didn't say it. God would know, and Ted was sure He wouldn't ask Ted to dwell on such a painful subject.

That seemed to about cover it, so Ted finished with some Latin and went to have his dinner at the Six Trumpets. He was starting to feel a little better, and he'd feel better yet once his winnings were safely fattening his account. Ted didn't like to think about how fat the account already was. He couldn't count somebody else's money as his own, however tempting that was.

He popped in to the booking office and asked for yesterday's results. The sour old woman behind the plexiglass pointed Ted towards the scoreboard. It was still showing the same results as yesterday, with Solid Gold coming in 7th after a row of Wilkes dogs. "Oh," said Ted. "I thought the results might have been checked already."

"That's funny," said the woman. Her voice was husky with cigarettes. "You're the second fellow's come up today and said the same thing."

"Oh? Where's he, then?"

"How'm I supposed to know? Went off to the pub, I imagine."

Ted had a funny feeling this might be his sign, so he found the pub on the corner and, sagged in the corner of a booth nursing a tall lager, the man from yesterday. He was crying openly. That was not a good sign. I was looking for a _good_ sign, thought Ted upwards.

"Father! Oh, Father, it's all over," wept the little man. "I got to drinking a couple of days ago and got the dates mixed up. The ordinance doesn't pass until next week."

"I see," said Ted.

"All that money I borrowed to put on Solid Gold, it's all gone. I'm done for. It's community service for me for non-payment of bills, and all my mates are going to want a piece of me when they find out." He hunched over the table and bawled. Ted caught the barman's disapproving eye and patted the man's back.

"I used to be a good Christian. It was the gambling, it was always the little flutter. That's what got me into drinkin', and drinkin' got me into more gambling. I've learned my lesson now. Never again. I will do my penance, Father. Here." He dug around inside his coat and brought out a crumpled airline ticket. "Look at this. I bought this last week. I was going to make so much money on Solid Gold that I'd finally get to do what I'd always dreamed of - go to Las Vegas for a real high stakes night out. That's all over now. The airline won't refund them, and I will never place another bet, not even for matches." He dropped the ticket on the table, squeezed out of the booth and donned his hat. "Well, Father, I'm off to confess to my wife. Wish me luck."

"Go with God," said Ted, managing to make it sound half-way genuine. Once the man was gone, his eyes found the ticket and fixed there.

If this wasn't a sign, Ted was a turkey. A little voice in the back of his head told him it could always be a sign from the other side. Another interjected that it could be another test of his faith. A third piped up with the controversial theory that belief in signs was just superstition and God was more of a poetic metaphor.

But. It _could_ be a sign. Visions of bright lights and fast money spun before his eyes.

Ted reached for the ticket.

*

Later on, it was hard for Ted to say which part of the whole experience had been the low point. It might have been that feeling of vertigo the moment the ball had stopped on black, or the time he had barely made it off the train on Wexford Station before he spotted three black-caped bishops flanked by a priest. Perhaps it was the disappointed phone-call from his brother. There was hardly any part that wasn't so painful that the mind shied away from it, sliding off towards any distraction in an effort to avoid it.

He was just coming home from the parish meeting where his probation had been made official and the extent of his own sins made plain, at least to Ted himself. The only rat in the case had been Ted himself. Julia Newark was indeed an orphan, whose aunt and uncle were called Mildred and Peter. She was no relation of Cedric's, but called him uncle out of pure affection. The two had met at confession when Julia had timidly confessed her vision. The vineyard she had an interview lined up for was in Gloucestershire.

Cedric had made his £1,500 by selling the raffle tickets to a local music festival, who bundled it with a number of other treats on a special festival ticket. He'd told Ted all about it on the church picnic when the two of them had been seated on either side of Mrs Maitland and suggested Ted do the same with the upcoming Irish Song & Dance Festival in Blackrock, Dublin. According to reports, Ted had said, "That's a great idea," and then proceeded to drink a whole bottle of white wine.

His future was still uncertain, save for one fact: Wexford would not feature in it.

He fumbled with the key and for a moment thought they might already have locked him out of the parochial house, with all his books and clothes still inside. "Father Crilly?" called a dulcet voice.

Ted turned tired eyes to the vision of Mrs Maitland on the other side of the fence. She was as lovely as ever – more so, as there were no more signs of tears around her eyes.

"Marianne," said Ted.

"It's Mrs Maitland, if you please," said Mrs Maitland coldly. "I heard about what you did. I can't believe you! I was so ashamed of myself for trying to seduce you that one night, and I thought you were so strong and moral, and then you -- ooh! When I think of you out there with all those flashy Vegas showgirls!"

"Seduce me? What about Father Cedric?"

"What about Father Cedric?"

"Wasn't it him you were having all those 'awful thoughts' about?"

"What on earth gave you that idea when I was all but climbing all over you?" She threw up her hands. "I thank the Good Lord and the Holy Virgin that I was preserved and double that I am now through with all men!" She flounced, bounced, and disappeared inside the house. Ted noted that Eric Maitland's slippers were no longer outside the door.

Ted closed his door to all that might have been. A week later he stood on the deck of a ferry with stinging rain whipping against his face, squinting into the mist. Out of the milky whiteness emerged a stretch of green shore.

He didn't know it then, but that might have been the worst part of it all.


End file.
